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Monday, April 23, 2012

Here's a simplistic article in the Washington Post about populist governments in Latin America. Here's a simplistic response from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. To be fair to the latter, the drumbeat against governments the U.S. doesn't like in Latin America is old and tiresome. In popular parlance, "populist" means "critical of U.S. policy." Lumping them together in any other terms does not bear much scrutiny, since their economic policies diverge greatly. However, it is equally misleading to argue that all of them are doing just great.

It is unfortunate that collectively we still don't scratch under the surface sufficiently, so that public discussions of Latin American politics--which are relatively rare anyway--don't get anywhere, even after years.

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I am an optimist about the Future of Relations between the United States and LAC ( Latin American and the Caribbean ) - This is not a wild guess but has a lot to do with History, Culture, Language, Civilization and most Important : The Economy, Trade, Exports ( growing at a very fast speed between USA and LAC )

If an asteroid falls and kills all mankind except the Latin or LAC Nations then there would still be Rogue or Scoundrel Nations, and Democratic Nations that love Liberty, Freedom, Democracy.

And those better nations would consider the USA as a Historical Inspiration and example.

Like many people look at the Greeks today ( and Athens in particular ) as an inspiration for Civilization and Culture.

What makes these two pieces simplistic? While I don't endorse every part of either one, particularly the linkages to other countries, I think the idea that Argentina's current government in its "nationalist populism" is very much going down an oft-trodden path. The Kirchner government has used executive power in the name of the people to rally against large domestic or foreign entities (Clarin, La Nacion, the UK, and now a Spanish oil company). The common thread appears to be to cement nationalist support for the govt. rather than some well thought out economic policy. The idea that a govt. takeover would lead to an increase in oil production is laughable from an economic perspective. If she argued it would lead to a fairer distribution of resources, as a political argument, maybe some would listen.